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[horsepun]

PLAYER INFO Player Name: Dees Preferred Contact Methods: Hornpile [at] im; Keywords [at] plurk; Other Characters: -- CHARACTER INFO Character Name: Horuss Zahhak Series: Homestuck Canon Point: Post Meenahbound History Link: This, but the information contained upon it is sparse. I'll write out my own history, if you don't mind! Much of Horuss' history is unclear, however we do know certain things. And in true Homestuck fashion, it is very probable nothing more will be revealed and that this is what we'll get on him. Hussie is far too busy double-killing characters to talk about history. So, what do we know? We know that Horuss grew up on the planet Beforus, the pre-scratch equivalent of Alternia. While Beforus was a peaceful planet (at least compared to Alternia) it was not a perfect planet by any means. Beforus too was host to the hemospectrum, a system in which trolls were divided into certain castes depending on the colour of their blood, each caste having unique roles and privileges. Ideally, on Beforus this would mean that the higher, stronger blood castes with longer life-spans would help take care of (cull) lower, shorter-lived castes. In practice however, this system had the effect of mostly coddling the lower classes, without allowing them true influence. So while the lowerbloods were not killed as on Alternia, they still were considered lesser than those of higher castes. The system itself was rather inflexible, and castes were generally expected to interact with those of their own castes, or those of near castes, while not moving too far up (or down!) the hemospectrum. The hemocism that was rampant on Alternia is as rampant on Beforus; they might not kill you, but they sure as fuck will look down on everything you are just on the basis of your blood. And mutants? Man, lets not even talk about mutants. As stated before, we don't know much about his life, though some things can be inferred. Much like all the other sgrub players he was created through ectobiology and send back in time. As all trolls, he was raised by a lusus. Judging by the fact that both Mituna and Rufioh have the same Lusii as the post-scratch descendants, it stands to reason that this would hold true for Horuss as well. Meaning that just like Equius he was raised by an odd centaur-musclebeast-humanimal lusus. It has been stated that this is one of the strongest species of lusii, and the only custodian strong enough to deal with Equius' (and by extend Horuss') chaotic strength. At some point during his life, he sought out Rufioh in the latter's forest. At this point, Horuss did not have a high impression of Rufioh. This in contrast to all of Rufioh's followers who put him on a pedestal. They started hanging out in secret, and noting Rufioh's lack of self esteem, Horuss started helping him by helping him hone his skills. What started off as an unlikely meeting of two people far across the hemospectrum turned into a friendship turned into a romance. A secret romance! Because Horuss at least had no intention of letting his interest in a lowblood become common knowledge, fearing the reaction other highbloods might have to him pursuing 'forbidden' blood. Rufioh, meanwhile, understood this sentiment and was 0k with it. (Possibly in part because at least at the start of his relationship with Horuss, he was cheating with him on his then girlfriend Damara) Then the group of twelve friends started playing sgrub and things become complicated. Sgrub is an odd computer game that both ends the worlds as well as creates a new world. If the players are successful, at least! In sgrub each player is given a role as a hero of a certain element as well as assigned to one of the two planets: Derse or Prospit. Though Horuss' planet was not stated directly, it was established that several of the pre-scratch trolls match the same dream planet as their post-scratch dancestors. Going by this pattern, it would mean that Horuss was a Derse dreamer like Equius. One thing we are certain of is his title though: Horuss is the Page of Void, matching his dancestor in aspect, though differing from him in class. The pre-scratch trolls' sgrub session was not a successful one. Most of them failed to live up to their potential. Their session was a long one, last for three sweeps, eventually ending in a scratch to reset the game and allow their post-scratch dancestors a chance at victory. Aranea states that throughout their game, despite much effort Horuss did do anything that affected their game greatly, either positively or negatively. That is not to say he did not do anything at all! After Rufioh is crippled by Damara, he builds him a mechanical body to replace his own. And when Rufioh dies, he is the one to revive him (back into his normal body!) with a kiss. Right before they scratch the game, Meenah kills all of them in an attempt to preserve some part of their essence in the dream bubbles. And that is where he has been ever since. At one point, Horuss meets his post-scratch dancestor Equius and his moirail Nepeta in one of the dream bubbles. Meeting them and seeing their moirallegience moves Horuss and it inspires him to seek out a similar relationship with Meulin. As a result of her advice, he is attempting to become less violent and negative and instead more pacifistic and positive. Through smiling. Constantly. Always. As a result, when Meenah asks him join her in an attempt to attack and kill Lord English, he declines, stating he is trying to trot down a more pacifistic road. Though he also states that if ordered, of course he will join in. Meanwhile though, he much rather work on himself and spend time with his matesprit Rufioh forever and ever and ever. (Rufioh meanwhile is still trying to break up with him.) And that is where we are when it comes to his history. Personality: The Basics Meeting him for the first time, people may form three impressions of Horuss: he's all brawn, no brain; he's really into steampunk; and he's the kind of person for whom smiling comes easy. Nothing could be less true. Just going by the physical, it might be easy to mistake Horuss for the kind of person that depends more on his muscles than his mind, but, as said, nothing could be less true. Horuss is strong, yes. Chaotically so, even. And yes, his body is trained and sculpted, something which he put much time and effort in. However Horuss has the wits to match his physical skills. He's an experienced mechanic, has a passion for the fine arts with an interest in poetry and sculpting, and he on more than one occasion sounds like he swallowed a dictionary. That is not to say that all of these skills came easy to Horuss. Quite the opposite actually. Horuss has no innate skills. Everything he is capable of, and everything he is, he carefully crafted, pouring endless hours of passion and work into mastering the things he has. This shows his dedication. Horuss may be a lot of things, but he is not a quitter. Then that other assumption; the one that Horuss is the kind of person to whom smiling comes easily. Again, nothing, absolutely nothing, could be less true. Up until recently, Horuss rarely smiled. He was a stoical, gruff character, prone to fits of rage and anger that he could barely keep in check. He was withdrawn and violent, and despite his smarts, more ready to solve his confrontations with his fists than through peaceful means. All of this started to change after meeting with his 'dancestor' (descendant+ancestor, it is a homestuck thing) Equius in the dreambubbles after his death. When he met Equius, he also met Equius' moirail Nepeta, and the sight of them and their moirallegience inspired an epiphany in Horuss. The sight of someone so similar to himself kept pacified through a succesful moirallegience no doubt highlighted the very lacking pacification in his own life, as well as indicate a person in which Horuss might find this pacification: Nepeta's own dancestor Meulin. And then Horuss asked Meulin to be his moirail and was a changed man. Well... not exactly. He is certainly trying to be a changed man. Horuss does honestly crave pacification and to turn a new, less violent leaf in life. And to this purpose he has been taking Meulin's advice of 'crushing the negative under the positive' to an extreme. Namely, he is doing this through smiling. All the time. Literally all the time. Even if it is physically painful. Because clearly the way to become something is to throw yourself into it 200% while loudly telling everybody that you have become this. So, why so shitty, Horuss? Well, first of all there is the matter of their very fresh moirallegience. Meulin and Horuss have been together for a very short period of time, and whether or not this relationship proves to be serendipity, right now the fact remains that their communication and knowledge of each other is not as best yet. Horuss admits he received this advice through 'moderately discernible' mimes from the deaf Meulin. Meaning there is a big chance that Horuss is taking Meulin's advice without certain intended nuances. There is also the fact that Meulin, who should be helping Horuss guide and adjust his actions probably is not as familiar yet with his subtle shifts and probably does not know the most effective ways to help him yet. Crafting a well running moirallegience is hard work, after all, a lot of work and dedication. And these two still have a lot of work cut out for them. Then there is also the matter of Horuss being a Page. His class in sgrub is the page class, a slow growing class with high pay offs. Meaning that any new skill Horuss attempts to learn will take a long time for him to master, however once he has mastered it, he is extremely skilled at it. Now apply this to Horuss' new change of heart. To become a changed man, Horuss needs a new set of life skills. While learning new life skills is never easy to begin with, it is doubly hard for Horuss because of how he masters things. This means that Horuss will likely struggle with these skills for a long, long while, until he finally will master them and learn to be truly pacified. Until that time though, the old Horuss, the one who was violent and full of rage and confrontation will still be lurking under the surface, leaving him to constantly struggle between his first instincts (to get angry and smash something) and what he is trying to become. Oh and that third assumption? The one that he is into steampunk. Well, that is sweatpunk, thank you, and you'd do well to know the difference. The Void We cannot talk about Horuss Zahhak without talking about the Void. Void is an element within Homestuck, much like Light, Rage or Mind. An element, no matter how oddly fitting at first, defines the Heroes of said element. Void is the element of nothingness itself, one of the most mysterious elements within Homestuck. To truly master Void, a Hero of Void needs to not only accept the nothingness within themselves, but simultaneously and perhaps paradoxically create something from nothing. Void is the element of irrelevance, of obscure knowledge and inability, yet a skilled hero of void must being this irrelevance into relevance. Heroes of void are much more than the heroes of other elements blank slates of nothing. And out of these lacking innate skills they must craft a personality and relevance, something which is harder for some than others. For Horuss, at the very least, it has been a hard struggle. His lack of definition has always bothered him and made him strive to become... become what? Anything really! Anything to define himself by. Anything to not be nothing. Yes, Horuss may acknowledge that he is Void, yet he does not truly accept it, something which keeps him from being a truly successful Hero of Void. To lack definition, to be irrelevant, is a concept that seems to scare Horuss, a reaction that is easier to understood if we remember his blood caste. Horuss is a blueblood, a member of one of the highest placed groups in society. And while belonging to such a group naturally comes with his privileges, it also comes with its exceptions. The Beforus caste system is build on the assumption that lowbloods are incapable of truly taking care of themselves, and therefore need highbloods to do so for them. This leads to a society which expects little to nothing from a large part of its population, instead focusing those expectations on a smaller group of people, of which Horuss is one. But where these high expectations lead Meenah to abscond, Horuss embraces them, being a true believer of the hemocaste system. He wants to be the best blueblood there ever was, to live up to all the expectations placed upon him, to fulfil all the demands of his caste and more, to be relevant in a society that considers a large group of its members irrelevant. So it is understandable that failing all of this, that being irrelevant and Void is something he fears. As always, sgrub assigns the element that both is and, perhaps paradoxically, challenges us the most. One way we can see how Horuss struggles with the void is in his near fanatical drive to be anything but void. He is almost obsessed with building himself and his personality into the best thing he thinks he can be, defining himself by skills rather than actual personality traits. In addition, he also has the tendency to define himself by other people where possible. A big example of this is Rufioh. As their relationship progressed, Horuss started to use him more and more to fill the void inside of him. The fact that this is leaving Rufioh uncomfortable --as displayed by the fact that he is trying to break up with him-- is something he cannot or refuses to see. However just because Horuss is (wilfully) oblivious to Rufioh's feelings doesn't mean he doesn't care. He cares a lot. Like, seriously. A lot. He loves Rufioh in the ways that would make romcom enthusiasts everywhere cheer. The Highblood As mentioned before, Horuss is a highblood of Beforian society. This shows in many ways. First of all there was his very high self-expectations and fear for not meeting them that was already discussed. Another big way Horuss' highblooded nature manifests is by looking at his belief in the hemospectrum. Horuss believes in the hemospectrum without question. He does not question it and tries to live to its rules as much as possible. He does not see it as wrong and on the whole believes in the attitudes put forth by the Beforian hemospectrum: that is to say the attitude that lowbloods are simply lesser capable, should not be giving too much responsibility and that they need highbloods to guide their ways. He is very judgemental, quick to judge a person by their blood colour and to determine their worth upon that. This is also nothing secret. He has not be raised to keep this hidden. He will quite happily declare Kankri's blood nauseating to his face, call his own moirail a ridiculous midblood, while meanwhile putting Meenah's blood on a pedestal. However despite allowing his hemocism to guide his general attitudes regarding people, at the same time, he is also capable of acknowledging and considering members of lower blood castes as friends. Meulin might be a ridiculous midblood, but she is also his treasured moirail now. Kankri might be a nauseating mutant, but Horuss is also one of the few who will happily listen to his lectures. (or at least the lecture that explains why Horuss thinking he is a horse is totally normal and acceptable) And while in the beginning, Horuss wanted nothing more to keep his relationship with Rufioh, a mere brownblood, secret, but now he has grown to the point of wanting to shout his love for him from the rooftops, even if he is a lowblood. Horuss can actually come across as a very helpful person, having offered his help and services at practically all the characters he directly interacts with. (He trained Rufioh before the game and build him a robotic body, offered to build Damara a robotic body with translation module installed, and offered to build an army of snorting horsebots for Meenah) It should be remembered however that Horuss is not completely altruistic in his offers of help. Yes, he offers help to both low and highblood alike, but when it comes to highbloods there is his personal drive to please them as they are superior to him --though it would be even better if they'd order him to-- and when it comes to lowbloods his offers for help do stem in part from the hemospectrum as well as it has been firmly ingrained in him that lowbloods need his help as a highblood to even really function properly. The burden of the highblood! As a result he can also sometimes do things that he considers helpful for the best of someone without taking their opinion into account. He made Rufioh a robotic horse body without ever taking his wishes into account, which while not done in malice, is still rather dickish. All in all, Horuss is basically a bit of a pompous dick, and I use the words 'a bit' quite wrongly. But also quite appropriately because they are a horse pun. But yes, he's a pompous privileged douche with pre-conceived notions of people's worth, who doesn't consider himself wrong in thinking so. If anyone wants to try and attempt to break Horuss of his hemocism they need a lot of patience. And booze, probably. His personality? A horse. Of course it is impossibly to talk about Horuss without mentioning that one thing. Yes. That. Horuss thinks he is a horse. Well, no, that is incorrect. Horuss thinks he is a herd of mythical hoofbeasts. And several hivehold appliances. And star systems and space, and concepts that aren't even concepts yet! But mostly a horse. A ridiculous notion, of course, but lets examine it further. All the trolls are meant to be internet stereotypes of some sort. Horuss clearly embodies the otherkin stereotype. As a sub-community, the otherkin community is for a big part build up of young people who, for whatever reason, feel like they have no identity or relevance in the real world, and as such latch onto being an imaginary dragon. Because if you are a dragon, you are someone, you are cool, and you are definitely not irrelevant. Really, it is no wonder that Horuss, the guy so fearful of not having an identity, latched onto be a magical pony. In a way it is like a defence mechanism, a safety blanket to cling onto. He isn't nothing, he's a pony! Neigh! Also, it leads to great horse jokes. So to sum it up, Horuss is a young man, currently in the process of trying to turn a new, more positive leaf in life, but not having much success with it beyond the surface. He's also someone who fears his own irrelevance and spends most of his time trying to find ways to define himself and be relevant to the point of unhealthily clinging to his boyfriend. And he is into horses. Really into horses. Powers: Much like Equius and Darkleer, Horuss is STRONG. Unlike Equius however, Horuss has learned to control his chaotic strength to the point of becoming proficient with bow and arrow. However, he is not in full control of his strength just yet. He mentioned needing destrengthening gloves to deal with very delicate things such as glass. In addition to his physical prowess, Horuss is also very intelligent. He is a skilled mechanic, capable of creating the same high-level robotics as Equius, even to the point of being able to completely mimic a troll body. Unlike Equius, however, Horuss uses a very odd source of fuel for his robots, namely sweat. He basically uses his own sweat to power all his creations. He's... eccentric. Horuss is the Page of Void. Currently not much is known about the page class, though that may change with Jake English's rising role in the story. What we do know of the Page class is that it advances very slowly, but if one has enough patient to continue on despite that, it also comes with very high pay offs at the high levels. It is basically that dreadful RPG class that is weak forever until it suddenly learns that one move that can knock down 90% of the bosses in one hit. We don't know yet if page is active or passive, though from the one instance it was seen being used, it was Tavros using his element (breath) to another's (Vriska's) benefit, which could point to it being passive. What we do know is that the page class comes with battle-panties. Yowza. As for Void. The powers of Void are not yet completely understood either. What is understood is that it deals with obscurity, irrelevance, hidden knowledge and hidden things. Roxy, for instance, manages to void out her entire session (thus hiding it from monitoring), similarly Equius' blood is used by Gamzee to void out information in the books Rose and Kanaya wrote, and finally Darkleer himself was referred to as a void spot by Mindfang, and he could not be found even by a first guardian himself, thus making him the perfect place to hide her orb. Horuss would have similar powers to this making him kinda like a voidy ninja. Who is also a horse. Other Details: As all trolls, Horuss types with a certain typing quirk. His words are typed in the b100 blue of his blood, and prefaced with a 8=D on suggestion of his moirail. It is a horse smiley face. Horsestly Honestly. In addiction to that, X and like sounds are replaced by an % while loo and ool are replaced by 100 and 001 respectively. Other than that, he types in with perfect grammar and punctuation. And big words. And horse puns. So many horse puns. SAMPLES Musebox thread meeting Nepeta and Equius in the dream bubbles. And how about a journal entry example one too --- [Finding himself here had been... something to bear with for sure. It had spooked him at first, the short burst of surprise followed very quickly by a quick, STRONG burst of anger. Just... Fiddlesticks, who would have the foolishness to simply grab him from the dream bubble without his consent and put him in this place like he was the commonest warm-blooded piece of cattle? It was infuriating, it made his fist clench, his teeth grinding together in his mouth and-- No. No, this was exactly what he was not supposed to do anymore. Positivity. Positivity was what he needed to crush the negativity. Yes, he was fairly certain Meulin had meant exactly that with her gestures. Forcing a wide, strained smile on his face, that might serve to scare the next person more than to comfort them, he reached for the device he had been given once more, then paused, changed his mind and dug into his intricate sylladex first for his de-strengthening gloves. It wouldn't do to break the fragile looking mirror, after all. Even if it probably would make him feel so good. Positive.] 8=D < I must admit a momentary sense of surprise at being brought to this place. 8=D < A lesser man may have found themselves e%periencing a STRONG burst of rage at such a une%pected stirrup. 8=D < Perhaps even found cause for destruction. 8=D < But with my STRONG sense of optimisim 8=D < and my e%ceedingly truthful smile 8=D < I was able to overcome to situation without any untoward behoofiour. 8=D < After all, to desire the aid of one of my skills and abilities is only natural and quite wise. 8=D < As part of my quest to trot down to a more peaceful path and indulge myself in more pacifistic pastures, I am willing to offer my services in roboti% and mechani% to those in need. 8=D < In addition, I am skilled in artistic pursuits. 8=D < And I tell a g*sh d*rned decent joke if I may say so myself. 8=D < Indeed, perhaps it is an injection of levity in these mane-ruffling circumstances that we all need. 8=D < If you will allow me... 8=D < What did the STRONG, august hoofbeast proclaim while laying on the ground, unable to lift his noble build upon his magnificent hooves once more? Any Concerns: I am apping a guy that thinks he is a horse, toaster and space. I don't think you can really help me anymore.